Many different businesses maintain a presence on the Internet. Typically, this presence is in the form of a web site, although a business may also use the Internet to access information or services, or to provide information or services. Often, a business may combine a number of these uses. For example, a business may provide a web site that provides information about the business and allows users of the web site to access services that are provided by a server that is separate from the business' web site.
Conventionally, services that reside at sites other than the business' web site have been accessed by providing a link to the other site. Thus, a user might view a first web site, see a link to a service, click on the link, and be taken to the site at which the service resides. Originally, it was typical for this type of linking to be readily apparent, as the user was simply transferred to the second web site. This could be somewhat problematic, however, as it is generally desirable for the business to keep the user at its own web site in order to maximize the effect of the web site (e.g., to increase the exposure of the business or the sales made via the web site). Techniques have therefore been developed to disguise the transfer of the user to the second web site. For instance, when a user is transferred to the second web site from the first web site, the appearance of the second web site may be altered by using graphics provided by the first web site or other indicia of the first web site. It may therefore appear that the services are actually being provided by the first web site.
Another technique for providing services over the internet is referred to as “web services.” While the services described above are provided over the web (the internet), the term “web services” is typically used (and will be used herein) to refer to services that can be accessed by making a function call to a remote server and then providing the results returned by the function call to the user of the first web site. “Web services” are further described in the Web Services Interoperability Organization's Basic Profile Version 1.0, herein incorporated by reference. While this technique keeps the user at the first web site and may simplify or streamline the process of providing the requested services to the user, there are several problems associated with the use of web services that still exist.
One problem is that, while a function call for accessing the web service may be defined and available for use by potential clients, the proper syntax for the function call may not be apparent. For example, it may be clear that the function call should include a date, but the required format of the date in the function call may not be clear. Thus, a client may make the function call with the date in the format “Jan. 1, 2002”, when the date should instead be in the format “Jan. 1, 2002”. The function call may therefore fail because the web service provider cannot interpret the date.
Another problem is that the web service provider may wish to have the web service presented in a particular way. For instance, the web service provider may be a provider of traveler's checks and may wish to have trademarks associated with the traveler's checks presented to the user in connection with the means for accessing the web service for ordering traveler's checks from the provider because a particular web service is typically accessed by looking up the form of a function call corresponding to the web service and making the function call without any regard to the branding of the service. The web services provided through the function call may therefore be presented to an end user in a way that is inconsistent with the presentation desired by the provider of the web service.